1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for conducting purchases in private over a network, such as the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In this day and age, companies want to know everything they possibly can about their customers and customer base. Customer purchasing data is sought, bought, analyzed, and sold extensively by the vast majority of companies. Because of these practices, it is no wonder that, in survey after survey, customers list privacy as their number one concern today.
For that matter, privacy and security are major concerns of customers who desire to purchase products over a network, such as the Internet. For example, a poll conducted by PC Magazine indicated that xe2x80x9cprivacy and securityxe2x80x9d were the top concerns of online shoppers, beating out xe2x80x9ccan""t inspect productxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cunfamiliar with processxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cdon""t want to wait for deliveryxe2x80x9d, and xe2x80x9cno concernsxe2x80x9d. PC Magazine, Aug. 10, 1999, obtained from www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews. A survey by IBM also indicates that privacy is the key to e-commerce. See xe2x80x9cIBM Survey Says Privacy Key to E-Commercexe2x80x9d, by M. Songini, Network World Fusion, Nov. 10, 1999. In that article, it states that 40 percent of Web users polled say they decided not to buy something because of privacy fears, and that, of American consumers, 78% refused to give information online, 54% left the site without buying, and 64% believe most businesses handle confidential data carefully. Given recent incidents concerning hacking of major web sites, privacy and security concerns will only become more of an issue in the future.
Current e-commerce companies stress that they are secure in that any confidential information sent over the Internet, such as credit card information, is encrypted and cannot be stolen by Internet bandits. However, while this may or may not be true, there is still the worry that the company itself will either utilize the customer""s private information to their own benefit, or sell it to others in order to make more money. Therefore, the customer needs to be protected.
The invention provides a method and apparatus for providing a private network transaction so as to make a buyer""s personal information inaccessible to a seller.
The private network transaction may be accomplished by a method of providing a private purchase transaction over a network. The method includes providing, by a purchaser to a company different from a seller, information required to purchase a product or obtain a service from the seller. The method also includes ordering, by the company to the seller, is the product or the service by using information regarding the company and not the information obtained from the purchaser in the previous step. The method further includes supplying, from the seller to the company, the product or the service ordered based on the information provided by the company in the previous step. The method also includes supplying, from the company to the purchaser, the product or the service ordered, the supplying being made based on the information provided in first step.
The private network transaction may be accomplished by a method of providing a private purchase transaction over a network. The method includes providing, by a purchaser to a company different from a seller, information regarding a desired recipient, the information being required to provide a product from the seller to be eventually sent to the desired recipient. The method also includes ordering, by the company to the seller, the product or the service by using information regarding the company and not the information obtained from the purchaser in the previous step. The method further includes supplying, from the seller to the company, the product or the service ordered based on the information provided by the company in the previous step. The method also includes supplying, from the company to is the desired recipient, the product or the service ordered, the supplying being made based on the information provided in the first step.
The private network transaction may be accomplished by a system for providing private purchases over a network, where the system includes a proxy unit that provides an interface between a buyer and a seller. The proxy unit includes a customer registration section that obtains personal information of the buyer and that provides the buyer with a password, identification number or tag. The proxy unit also includes a customer order section that obtains information related to a purchase to be made for the customer, the information being provided by the customer by using the password. The proxy unit further includes a database that stores the personal information of the buyer, the information related to the purchase, and stores that information with the password as a tag to obtain that information. The proxy unit still further includes a purchasing section that, upon indication from the customer order section that the information related to the purchase is available from the database, contacts the seller in order to make the purchase using personal information of the proxy unit and not of the buyer, wherein a purchase identification tag, identification number or password is also stored in the database together with the personal information of the buyer. The proxy unit also includes a receiving section that receives goods or services related to the purchase, sent by the seller, and that obtains the personal information of the buyer from the database using the purchase identification tag or password that is provided by the seller with the goods or services, in order to ship the goods or services to the buyer.